


His Hidden Hope

by Dragonsigma



Category: The Goblin Emperor - Katherine Addison
Genre: M/M, Romance Novel, metadocument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-29
Updated: 2017-12-29
Packaged: 2019-02-23 09:37:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13187364
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dragonsigma/pseuds/Dragonsigma
Summary: Being a Tale of the Remarkable Bond between Talis Athmaza and Lieutenant Saru Parzhezh, Nohecharei to an Emperor of Past Times.By Kivran BrizezhoFourth in the Histories of Talis Athmaza





	His Hidden Hope

**Author's Note:**

  * For [farevenasdecidedtouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/farevenasdecidedtouse/gifts).



“Saru, what hast done this time?” Talis scolded, washing out his partner's wound with both soap and a maz that burned as it cleansed the cut of toxins. “And stay still whilst I tend to this.”

Lieutenant Parzhezh grumbled but let him work. “A thief in the marketplace, Talis. I could not simply allow him to escape after he overturned two carriages and escaped with a lady’s shawl.”

Talis had to smile, though he hid the fondness in his eyes by turning away to find the bandages. Such a noble soldier, Saru was. Yet as marvelous as Talis found his deeds, he longed for the day that Saru would allow himself to rest, allow himself to be adored, comforted… entertained. 

Talis dragged his attention back to the task at hand with a silent, vicious reprimand to his wandering mind. Now was not the time for such fantasies. But how could he not ponder the notion, here with strong muscles under his fingers and the Lieutenant’s breath close enough to warm his neck?

“There, that should hold,” he said, tying off the bandage and reluctantly pulling his hands away from that precious skin that had been so cruelly torn by an uncaring blade.

Saru nodded and pulled down his jacket sleeve. “My thanks,” he said, and did his eyes linger a moment too long on Talis’s face, or was it only Talis’s desire that made it seem so?

“We- we ought to eat,” Talis said at last. “I will have food brought, so thou neednst leave.”

“Rubbish. I can still walk, and I should like to leave this stuffy room for a time,” Saru said, already at the door, and Talis’s heart fell. No matter, he would stay at Saru’s side, even if he had to compete with the kitchen maids for his attention. And the kitchen maids - and plenty of other servants too - were certainly enamoured with Saru. Enamoured with them both, in fact, but though Talis counted many of them as friends, he had absolutely no interest in their charms or their beds. He had enjoyed a tumble with a courier boy some months ago, but since then had not been able to summon the will to bed a near-stranger when Saru shone so bright in his sky as to drown out the others entirely. 

And Saru, who flirted freely with the maids though to Talis’s knowledge had not taken any of them to his bed, knew nothing of it, would never know, if Talis’s fortune held. For what answer could such a man give when confronted with what he would surely see as perverted desires? No, it was surely best that he did not know, and that his esteem for his maza partner held. Talis would endure his longings and be content with what he had.

As they walked through the narrow servant halls, Talis heard a sound at his feet. He looked down to find one of the palace cats padding alongside him, the tail of an unfortunate mouse protruding from its mouth. Talis reached down to stroke the creature’s ears; it mewed and rubbed against his hand and ankles, dropping the mouse tail on the floor and looking expectantly up at him. 

“Good work,” Talis said, and apparently it was enough, for the cat mewed again and hurried off. Above him, Saru hummed in amusement. “The creatures seem to like thee,” he said. Talis smiled. “They are clever animals. One must be patient with them.”

Saru nodded, thoughtful, and they continued on.

No sooner had they taken seats on the worn benches in the little room off of the kitchen than a girl in a green bonnet and greying apron swept into the room and laid plates and platters before them: cuts of roast meat dripping with juices, steamed buns stuffed with preserved vegetables, eggs poached in herb sauce. Surely there was no finer food in the entire Empire, Talis thought as he cut into an egg and watched it run golden over his spoon.

The maid - Talis did not know her name, and suspected she was a new arrival - stood by the door as they ate, attentive but silent until Saru ushered her over with a question about something or other. The conversation started slowly, with much blushing and stammering on her part, but soon grew lively. Talis tried to smile, but each word and laugh was like a bruise to his heart. 

When they finished their supper, the plates were whisked away and swiftly replaced with a dish of candied fruit and a plate of pastries filled with nuts and glazed with honey. Even Talis’s sorrow could not hold up in the face of such fine sweets, and he ate gladly, though his eyes drifted again and again to the smear of honey on Saru’s lips. It was useless to dream of kissing those lips, he knew, but imaginings of what he could not have would hurt none but himself.

They departed then, Saru wishing the maid a farewell that left her once again blushing with pleasure, and walked silently for some time before Saru’s cheer dropped away and he said coolly, “Needst not disapprove so.”

Talis froze. “I was not-” he began, and swallowed. 

“It cheers her, and does no harm,” Saru continued over his protest. “I am not the rake thou takest me for.”

“I did not mean to suggest such,” Talis said, heart pounding. “I was merely… distracted.” He fumbled for an excuse. “The- the upcoming dance, I am concerned about His Serenity’s safety. The Rathanada rebels have gained a foothold in Amalo…” He trailed off. Saru peered at him for a moment as if doubtful of his sincerity, but seemed to accept it. He nodded.

“Thou’rt right. I shall raise the matter with the Captain of the Guard tomorrow.” And with that, the moment was past, and Talis breathed again. 

Their shift watching over the Emperor’s sleep was quiet and uneventful, without even the sounds of rain or wind to distract Talis from thoughts of Saru and the girl… How he wished he was free to play that game of words and smiles with his partner, free to be courted, to be caught! He sighed and let his ears droop. It was not to be.

When morning at last came and the other shift met them at the Emperor’s breakfast table, Talis was tired in body and spirit, and gladly fell into his lonely bed to sleep until a more acceptable hour. 

He woke in mid-afternoon to the sound of a knock at the door. Saru was nowhere to be seen; his bed was made and his jacket was missing from its hook. The knock sounded again; blearily, Talis stumbled across the room and opened the door to the sight of the kitchen maid from the previous evening bearing a tray with a plate of crumpets and ham, a pot of tea, and two cups. Clearly she was expecting someone, and hesitated when she realized he was not present. 

“Ah, Athmaza… we can leave this here?” she asked, uncertain. Talis was of half a mind to send her away as soon as possible, but guilt stung him. If his unhappiness over supper had been read as disapproval by Saru, surely the girl had thought the same. 

“Stay a moment, if you wish,” he said, taking the tray and setting it on a table. “We do not believe Lieutenant Parzhezh will return soon, but it is possible.” He could hardly fault her for winning Saru’s attention when he so desired the same. “What is your name?”

“We are Telaro, Athmaza,” she said, and stepped forward to pour the tea. “We arrived here three weeks ago, but only recently were we promoted from the scullery.” 

“And how are you finding the work?” Talis asked, taking the cup and breathing in the sweet steam. 

“There is a great deal of it, but it is good. Better work than we have had before,” she admitted. 

Talis winced, and hid it by taking a crumpet. Telaro’s eyes widened. 

“Nothing like that!” she insisted. “We are not disreputable. It is only that the other kitchens and weaving shops we have seen before have not been nearly so well-run.”

“We did not intend to cast doubt on your character,” Talis said. Would nothing he said be taken as intended? “And we will not keep you from your work if you are needed there.”

She glanced to the door. “We can spare a few minutes, but if you wish privacy, we can leave. There is always something that needs doing.”

“We suppose-” Talis began, and got no further, for the door swung open to reveal Saru standing there on the threshold, sword at his belt, sweaty from training. As he studied the two of them Talis was abruptly aware of how this must look: he in his worn dressing gown sitting and talking with the serving girl his partner had shown interest in only the day before. He waited for disgust to bloom in dark eyes, as it surely would, now that Saru had reason to think him careless.

Telaro leapt up. “Lieutenant Parzhezh. We have brought your breakfast.” 

“So we see,” Saru said, turning away from Talis to grace her with a bright smile. “It is much appreciated. We thank you.”

She poured the second cup of tea, and it was no wonder Saru liked her, with those fine hands and sweet face. When she was finished she departed with the tray. Saru gave her a small bow as she left, as if to a woman of nobler birth. 

For a fraction of a thought Talis could imagine the gesture meant for him, but that evaporated once the door was closed again. Saru pulled off his jacket and sword belt and took a seat at the small table.

“I do not know what game thou’rt playing, Talis,” he said as he plucked a crumpet from the plate, “but it is unlike thee to drag others into it.”

“I do not intend to steal her, if that is what thou think'st,” Talis replied, stung.

“Steal her? Nonsense. I lay no claim to her affection.”

“And I am the one playing games!?” Talis leapt to his feet, chair roughly shoved back, fists clenched in broken-hearted fury.

Perhaps it would have been simpler if Saru had argued back, accused Talis of being nosy and irrational, stormed off and left Talis alone with his misery and hopeless dreams.

Instead, Saru looked up at him with startled concern crinkling his eyes. He set his cup down on the table, the small sound loud in the silence. 

“Talis, what has upset thee so?” 

Talis felt a fool: what reason had he to react so to this particular fancy of his partner's? It was no different from any of the others. The two would tease and play in a predictable dance, none of it serious, until one or the other moved on. It meant nothing to Talis. Saru’s affections would never be his. 

“It is- it is nothing.” He shook his head, cast his gaze down and away from Saru’s gentle concern. “I am sorry.” 

He sat down again and reached for the food, though the tea was somehow more bitter than before and the bread stuck in his throat. 

“Think no more on it,” Saru said, and it was more than Talis deserved. “Sleep a little more, if thou must. We have another two hours before our shift begins.”

Talis nodded. “I shall.” He let Saru’s kindness soothe him as best it could. He had this, and this was something to be treasured. Fortune did not look kindly on those who demanded more than their due. 

They finished eating in silence, and Saru departed again, towards what purpose, Talis did not know. Likely more achingly poetic rescues and fleeting courtships with girls who did not know how lucky they were. 

Talis sighed and crawled back into his now-cold bed as Saru had suggested, but sleep was not to be found. After maybe a quarter-hour of lonely silence and fruitless shifting of blankets, he rose again and sat at his desk to read the pile of correspondence that had accumulated there. 

He slit open the first envelope to find a letter from one of his teachers, congratulating him on his position and asking after his health. The fatter package beneath it held the latest installation in a mystery serial he had subscribed to some time ago and forgotten to read, the next a note from a friend accompanying a cheaply-printed comic pamphlet covered in annotations, and so on. 

It was not altogether cheerful, reminding him as it did of his prior life, of friends he once might have seen every day before the unforgiving schedule of a nohecharis made that an impossible fancy, but by the end of the stack he had risen from his melancholy and was in fact quite ashamed of how he had spoken to Saru over their meal. 

He apologized again when he joined Saru in the antechamber to the Michen’theileian, and Saru once more met him with a gentle smile and a promise that all was well between them. 

Talis wished he could believe the same. 

There they waited for the Emperor to arrive and once he did, took up their places behind him. 

The afternoon began with a rather dry audience with the heads of the Weavers’ and Silversmiths’ Guilds. Their Emperor had, before his ascension, showed a great interest in trade and commerce, and now that he had taken his throne he intended to make increases in trade the central focus of his reign. 

Their talk bore no resemblance to any mathematics Talis was familiar with, but the Emperor was an intelligent man and Talis was confident he would be successful in whatever it was he intended to do. 

The audience ran long; finally the guild masters were ushered out when the Emperor’s secretary arrived in the doorway with an implacable expression and a non-negotiable schedule. 

(“Clever of His Serenity,” Saru commented to Talis later, “to make them feel themselves to be so important as to be given additional time without asking. They'll certainly be willing to agree to any compromise he thinks is needed.”)

They followed the Emperor to his next meeting, a discussion with the Witness for the Universities about proposed education plans that were as unlikely to pass after the meeting as they had been before, or indeed several years ago. 

Not that this seemed to concern the Witness; the lanky and excitable man spoke proudly of the project as if he fully believed it would be met with approval from the world over. The Emperor listened and questioned and sent the Witness away with a noncommittal answer, and then it was time to return to the Emperor's chambers so he could be dressed for the evening's entertainment. 

The Emperor's edocharei took him behind the filigree screens, leaving Talis and Saru to wait, ever vigilant, as they brought out layers of embroidered silk robes and trays of jewels and pearls and gold. As always, Talis kept an ear on their chatter, for a nohecharis should never allow himself to be lulled into complacency, but here at the heart of the Alcethmeret, he did not feel especially guilty about letting his thoughts drift a little, to responses to his friends’ letters and to books and papers he wanted to read and, inevitably, to Saru. To how his lips would feel on Talis’s, how his strong, warm, weapon-calloused hands would feel on bare skin, how his voice would sound, rich with love and care or rough with pleasure as Talis-

Talis sighed and shook his head, earning an all-too-brief glance from Saru. Truly, he was as hopelessly lost as any lovestruck maiden in a tale. And less likely than they to ever get his wish. 

Enough. He was not so much a fool that he could not think of other things. The Emperor was emerging from behind the screens now, and he had to be aware. 

Most of the boxes were already full by the time they reached the theatre. A respectful quiet met their arrival; the quiet chatter picked up again once the Emperor sat. A few courtiers approached him and as always he met their amiable talk and subtle political anglings with polite and noncommittal answers. 

And then the music rose and the actors began the opening aria, and the audience fell silent. The opera was unremarkable; expertly sung, of course, but following a plot too derivative to be novel and not traditional enough to be classic. Of course, as nohecharis, his attention was not on the performance but on the actors and the audience, but he caught enough of the music to form an opinion even so. He had not been fond of opera before Csanet had taken him to a performance of the tragedy of Hanevis, and that had spurred an interest in the histories… and the romances. How much of that had been his own interest, and how much to please his charming mentor, Talis was not certain.

Everything was utterly normal, all through the first act and the intermission, where girls flitted around with platters of wineglasses, and then barely a minute into the second act, a tiny sound from above, almost inaudible above the music, caught Talis’s ear. He glanced up, saw only the flash of a foot disappearing behind the elaborate carvings, and just as he gathered breath to warn Saru and the Emperor, saw the flicker of flame.

“Above!” he hissed. The Emperor turned to him in alarm; Saru, drawing his sword, pushed forward to face the threat. Nothing happened for too many long moments, and then the fire engulfed first one ancient wooden gargoyle and then another. Something spun through the air, trailing sparks, and fell into the curtains at the rear of the box. They caught as fast as the rest of the construction, blocking any escape. The crowd was screaming now, the music still going until it too faltered out as the musicians realized the peril. 

The fire spread quickly, from rafter to rafter and curtain to curtain, surrounding them, filling Talis’s vision. Saru and the Emperor and the rest of the helpless crowd had no chance in this, especially not the courtiers and noblewomen decked out in ribbons and long coats and frilled dresses. This entire wing of the Court was full of the same aged wood - how quickly would it catch?

“Serenity!” Saru called, coughing from smoke. He said more, but Talis did not hear. Instead he closed his eyes and breathed as best he could, let his attention drop away from the screams of courtiers and the crackle of flames, focused only on the energy and heat of the fire itself, on forcing it back, countering it with stillness and cold…

Slowly, too slowly, the tongues of flame heeded him, crawling back into their burrows of ash to flicker out and die. When at last he could sense no more, when the embers and cinders were cold and dead, Talis opened his eyes to smoke and half-burned rafters. He only caught a glimpse of his workings, for the next moment the world around him distorted as if seen through warped glass, and then faded out entirely as exhaustion overtook him. The last thing he was aware of before a thick darkness blocked out all else was the feeling of a strong arm supporting him as he fell. 

He came back to himself slowly. His first impressions were of confused fog and bitter cold. But his head, muddled and aching though it was, rested against something warm. And there was a warmth at his back too, steady and firm. He snuggled against it, knowing little but that he desperately needed the heat.

He groaned and tried to open his eyes. And then an all-too-familiar voice brushed against his ear. “Talis! Thank the gods. Stay still; thou'rt safe now.” 

Saru. Saru was holding him close against his body so that Talis’s head lay on his shoulder, his arms wrapped around Talis’s bare chest. He must still be dreaming, he thought, and hoped he never woke. 

“All is well. The Emperor is safe, and none perished save the assassin himself,” Saru told him, voice making it very clear what he thought of the arsonist. “It is thy doing, that it is so.”

He remembered the opera, now. Remembered the fire, and the chill he had summoned to quench it. He shivered. 

“Art warm enough?” Saru asked, his voice rumbling against Talis’s neck. “Wert so cold; hadst drained thyself of heat with that maz.”

They were in a bed, his own, Talis thought, which only deepened his certainty that this was all a creation of his addled mind. Perhaps a consequence of the spell, or the exhaustion? Somebody had tucked warm blankets around them both, and beneath their cover Saru’s body was like a furnace, steadily thawing Talis’s chilled bones. 

He drifted in half-awakeness for some time, letting the heat sink into his skin. And then he felt Saru shift against him.

“Should I leave thee to sleep?” Saru asked, soft.

If this was a dream, there could be no harm in prolonging it… 

“Stay,” Talis managed to say, his voice weak with fatigue. But Saru heard him even so.

“So I shall,” he said, and Talis had no words to describe the brush of lips at his temple that followed.

He must have sighed, or made some noise of contentment, for Saru hummed and then he was running his fingers along the edge of Talis’s ear, pressing another kiss there.

“I should have seen so much sooner,” Saru whispered. “Forgive me.”

If this was not real, if Talis were to wake alone and unloved after seeing his affections returned, surely it would shatter his heart. 

But he did not wake to find it all a fantasy, nor did Saru turn away from him. 

“Stay,” he said again, and Saru pulled him against his chest. 


End file.
